Courtney is up first. Whenever she reads a post about what’s the social media ROI, she thinks about the fact there’s no silver bullet. There will be no simple equation that provides a number to quantify ROI.

Only 20% of CMOs think social media marketing produces measurable ROI. Only 13% of marketers think they’re doing a good job of social media marketing. 100% of those that did not define ROI in the calssical definition believe that social media benefits their business.

3 tips for understanding social media ROI:

know your goals

align social metrics

break it down

Types of social media goals:

brand sentiment

sales

share of voice

customer service

reach

product development

engagement

marketing insights

brand advocates

brand trust

brand loyalty

Example: Gilt Group

Goal: Solve shipping costs barrier using insight from online community

Result: 10% increase in shopping cart conversion

Example: AT&T

Address negative sentiment and unresolved customer service issues on the social Web

Break it down by goal, by campaign, by time period, by medium, and even by post.

http://gaconfig.com is a free tool designed to help you set up advanced goals in GA to see social media ROI.

Next is Monique. Her company did a sweepstakes for client Bozzuto, a community of apartments across a number of regions. Asked people for their secrets of different locations, like best happy hour, theater performances, etc. They wanted to make sure the cost of the sweepstakes was right (from designing and copywriting, email, call tracking, ads…)

Wildfire was a tool they used. They also learned FB requires a 3rd party tool like Wildfire when running a sweepstakes on an FB page. They set up a FB Microsite. Wildfire allowed them to keep a consistent brand image. They also learned people can’t be forced to like the page. Instead they built encouragement into the banner ad that pointed directly to the like button.

KPI #1: Emails

Building up their email list was a big asset. They collected their name, how they entered, whether or not they liked the page, if they were a current resident. Total costs/ new emails = cost per email. Turned out this was lower cost than their regular cost per email.

KPI#2: Social referral traffic

Saw how people came to the page from social networks through GA. Built other networks (wildfire, hootsuite) into advanced social segments.

KPI #3: Website traffic from a specific link

Created vanity URLs – easy to remember in ads. Connected with parameters that showed sources, saw how people were coming to the site from specific collateral. Can easily see this in GA.

KPI #4: Leads

Phone calls from dynamic call tracking phone number used on sweepstakes page. Contact form completions tracked with GA goals. Total costs / active leads = cost per lead

KPI #5: Banner and Facebook Ads

KPI #6: Entries

Got cost per entry down with every successive sweepstakes.

KPI #7: Twitter engagement

KPI #8: Facebook engagement

Need more FB and Twitter metrics? Raven, seoMoz, Simple Measured

Beyond KPIs:

Storify allows you to look at conversations and go beyond KPIs and stats.

Tami gets asked the question of justifying social media a lots. She’ll look at measuring through social sharing and the value of socila media as a free market research tool.

Value of social = as;ldfkja;sldfjadoiuasdf;lj… Value is specific to you.

The first step in determining SM ROI is what makes sense for your business goals. After that the KPIs fall in line.

Social sharing buttons are embedded on sites and drive referral traffic, etc. Sharing has no variable costs. It doesn’t cost when someone shares, or when their friends click. Social sharing is influential. People are twice as likely to trust info emailed or shared on social network from a friend. It drives traffic to the top of the funnel. On average a single share to a social network drives 6 new visitors to a website.

Sales resulting from conversion buddy shares have 26% higher average order value (AOV) than other channels. It drives both micro and macro conversions. But, to justify the investment it must be tied to conversions. When you can put a graph that lines up shares with clicks, conversions, purchases and sales, you have a case for investing in social.

Merry takes the podium. She’s going to look at Facebook Insights, button and URL analytics, social and open graph site tools and powerhouse tools.

Start with the right questions – what are my goals and what are my indicators? How big is my circle and by how many degrees of separation? Where can we associate convos – find it, tap into it? How do people engage – like, share, comment? What are the demographics of my audience?

About the Author

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay, Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger. Head over to her author page to connect on social.

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